(a.) Of or pertaining to an omen or to omens; being or exhibiting an omen; significant; portentous; -- formerly used both in a favorable and unfavorable sense; now chiefly in the latter; foreboding or foreshowing evil; inauspicious; as, an ominous dread.
Example Sentences:
(1) Indeed, his reaction to the nationwide citizens' revolt reveals ominous parallels with another autocratic leader who has recently found himself in a tight spot: Vladimir Putin.
(2) As with other malignant salivary gland tumors, advanced stage and pain as a presenting symptom were ominous findings.
(3) We reached the following conclusions: The incidence of operative phrenic nerve injury in infants undergoing lateral thoracotomy, particularly for Blalock-Taussig shunt, is higher than generally appreciated; plication is a safe procedure as performed by either an abdominal or thoracic approach; failure to achieve extubation within a week of plication is an ominous prognostic sign; mortality in patients with eventration in the presence of major associated conditions may be high despite plication.
(4) A decrease of the activities of all dehydrogenases examined appeared to be prognostically ominous, correlating with a score of 7 or higher.
(5) In our report we document that myelofibrosis associated with breast cancer is not an ominous sign.
(6) In a comment likely to be seen as ominous at the White House, Comey said the inquiry was “very complex and there is no way for me to give you a timetable as to when it will be done”.
(7) Ominous fetal heart rate patterns were less common in hypertensive women without these risk factors; still the significant differences in comparison with normotensive women remained.
(8) The presence of liquid neutral fat without an intra-articular fracture is an ominous sign of a significant soft tissue injury.
(9) The tracings were scored blindly according to severity of abnormal patterns, and the infants were grouped into ominous, intermediate, and normal scores.
(10) The point made here is that loss of biodiversity should be as ominous for microbiologists and biotechnologists as it is to conservationists.
(11) In 1997, the Miami Fusion entered the league and ominously played in the old home of the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers (a converted high school stadium).
(12) Starting small, with oddly tweaked vocal samples and ominous-sounding piano, the first half is brilliantly brooding, to the point where the first chorus of “I love these streets but they weren’t meant for me to walk” arrives at the 45-second mark just as all the music drops away completely.
(13) It’s a seismic moment for the industry and particularly the big European manufacturers who have done a lot of work on diesel: technologically, they have they made the wrong bet.” Some analysts believe fears of brand damage in Europe are overstated but Bailey says: “In the US it’s very different: VW have killed their diesel market and it has left them in a very difficult position.” For British manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, the timing of VW’s woes was ominous, as it unveiled two new diesels in America.
(14) The finding of involvement of para-aortic lymph nodes in patients with adenocarcinoma of the prostate has been considered so ominous that further therapy has often only been palliative.
(15) It is ominous because it suggests that the monitors will not be given free access as was hoped.
(16) Both clear-cut benign and transitional sebaceous neoplasms should also be recognized as having the potential to undergo an ominous clinical regrowth upon subtotal excision and a complete squamous transformation.
(17) She writes: It used to be that evil finance plots at least had the dignity to be conducted in back rooms, with much mustache-twirling and fondling of watch fobs as well as hearty, if ominous laughs.
(18) Even more ominous is the fragmentation of the global news agenda, and with it public opinion, into clear propaganda blocs.
(19) Having done battle with the Walkie-Scorchie "fryscraper" by Rafael Viñoly – who, somewhat ominously, is also responsible for the Battersea power station masterplan – at least London should be ready for whatever Gehry decides to throw at it.
(20) But I think the signs from here on are more ominous for Cameron.
Pretext
Definition:
(n.) Ostensible reason or motive assigned or assumed as a color or cover for the real reason or motive; pretense; disguise.
Example Sentences:
(1) • In an emergency UN security council meeting, the US ambassador accused Russia of "looking for a pretext to invade" Ukraine.
(2) "I urge both the monks and the lay Tibetans of the area not to do anything that might be used as a pretext by the local authorities to massively crack down on them.
(3) "Financial aid for this group was usually provided from London under the pretext of charitable donations.
(4) Naureen Shah, director of Amnesty International USA’s security and human rights programme, acknowledged the need for governments to assess their approach in the aftermath of major attacks but said: “What we don’t want to see is government using the Paris attacks as a pretext for extending surveillance authorities or pushing back against reforms that even the government acknowledged as necessary.” Some of the hawkish responses to events in Paris “raise a question of whether there’s an exploiting of public fear and anger and anxiety to push legislation through”, she added.
(5) They also suggest that although Putin was using the rights of the Russian minority in Lithuania and Latvia as a pretext to cause trouble, the rights of Russian minorities needed protection.
(6) The first 80-page file on Smith compiled in 1970 contained allegations from eight men that they were abused as teenagers by Smith on the pretexts of either a medical examination or punishment for misbehaviour.
(7) All over Europe people are being forced by national governments and the EU to suffer the most extreme neoliberal policies under the pretext of solving this crisis,” she said.
(8) In the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union, writers and activists were commonly detained on mental health pretexts.
(9) Amnesty International has called on the Egyptian government not to use Barakat’s death “as a pretext for trampling upon human rights”.
(10) The loss of Section 215 will deprive the NSA of the legal pretext for its bulk domestic phone records dragnet.
(11) Pope Francis has spoken out against those who use religion as a pretext for violence and oppression, in his clearest denunciation yet of the Islamic state militants murdering their way across Syria and Iraq.
(12) "If you listen to what Lloyds said in 2011 when they took the initial £3.2bn charge – that was used for a pretext for making a clawback on 12 executives.
(13) Physical illness may give rise to feelings of hopelessness to which the physician must stay attuned; the patient may also use physical illness as a pretext for seeking help for deeper things that trouble him.
(14) As the White House struggled to impose pressure on Putin, Kerry accused the Russian leader of acting “in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext”.
(15) The idea that it could carry on without even the pretext that I was involved in CND when I was a member of parliament is completely and utterly outrageous.” Ruddock said she has written to May today demanding answers and would write again to whoever was the new home secretary after the election.
(16) The pretexts — that Queensland has no house of review, and that the state is in receipt of Commonwealth money — are not new developments.
(17) One week later a 50-minute class in acupuncture and Chinese medicine was given in a community health class to one of the two pretexted groups and one of the two untested groups.
(18) The institute said in a statement: "Contrary to its claims to be a marine wildlife conservation group, in reality [Sea Shepherd] are dedicated to fundraising and to spread violence under pretext of protecting whales.
(19) Their meeting occurred after a series of events that point to this.” Netanyahu made the claim – which he also made in 2012 – to illustrate what he said was the Palestinian history of using holy sites in Jerusalem as pretexts for committing acts of violence against Jews.
(20) "May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman, above all to the right to life and the right of everyone to religious freedom," he said.